A number of capitalist governments in Europe are promoting policies that give more room for conservative and right-wing outfits to campaign for restrictions on the rights of these working people. These groups and parties are taking advantage of the tightening economic situation to attempt to divide the working class by making immigrants scapegoats for rising unemployment and worsening social conditions.

The free movement of people in an expanded European Union (EU) has been a contentious issue among the 12 countries seeking to join the EU. The French and German governments, among others, are demanding that citizens of new member countries not be allowed to travel unrestricted in the EU for up to eight years. They also stipulate that countries gaining admittance must beef up their eastern borders with Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine to prevent unregulated immigration into Europe.  
 

Anti-immigrant campaign in Germany
"With 4.3 million unemployed we can't have more foreign workers coming into Germany," Edmund Stoiber, of the conservative Christian Social Union, told reporters January 16. Stoiber, who is premier of Bavaria, was recently chosen as the party's candidate for chancellor. In challenging the incumbent social democrat Gerhard Schröder to a series of televised debates, he said he would "like to meet him when the jobless figures come out in February and ask him what he plans to do about it."

A few months ago the reelection of Schröder was considered a cakewalk in national elections scheduled for September. Stoiber, however, has opened up a small lead of 3 percentage points in the opinion polls.

While Schröder has backed measures to make it easier for some industries to hire workers from abroad, his government has also carried out assaults against sections of the working class. After the September 11 events the German government has used its antiterror campaign to promote repressive measures targeting immigrants who are Muslims. Reactionary legislation was signed into law December 8 that authorized the banning of religious organizations if they are deemed to be "undermining democracy" or "inciting violence."

Four days after the new law took effect the government banned 20 organizations and conducted more than 200 raids in seven cities, entering offices, homes, and mosques.

Rightists have also made gains in Denmark, where elections took place last November. The right-wing Danish People's Party doubled its seats in parliament and became the third-largest party in the country. Its leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, scapegoated Muslims in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and campaigned for greater restrictions on immigrants.

Denmark's former prime minister, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who was trounced in the elections, was dealt a blow one year earlier by the People's Party, which spearheaded the defeat of a referendum on adopting the euro. Rasmussen campaigned for joining the currency union, but the "no" vote won by 53.1 percent.

"I fear things could get worse with this new government," said Zarah Ahmed, a shopkeeper from Syria. Immigrants were being blamed for Denmark's growing economic and social problems, he said.

"Ugly remarks increased after September 11," said Wallid el-Amrani, a student from Jordan. "I often get called names when I go out on the town for a beer."

The Danish ruling class has kept tighter controls on immigration than most European countries. Out of a population of 5.3 million fewer than 5 percent are foreign born.  
 
Beating by cops in Spain
The Spanish cops' treatment of immigrants from Africa has been highlighted in the recent brutal beating in Barcelona of a U.S. citizen who is Black. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is pressing the U.S. ambassador to Spain to file a formal complaint with Madrid.

The man, Rodney Mack, the principal trumpet player in the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, was attacked by four cops in an underground garage after he left rehearsal. The cops claim that they were looking for a car thief who was "Black and roughly Mack's height." Mack says the police did not identify themselves. In the end he was charged with resisting arrest and attacking a police officer.

The NAACP expressed its outrage that neither the Spanish nor the U.S. governments have taken any formal action against the police officers. Spanish officials later admitted the beating was a "misunderstanding." but added that Mack fit the "characteristics" of skin color and height of the suspect the police were trying to apprehend.

Cops and the fascist National Front in Britain have collaborated in attacks on working people from the Indian subcontinent who live in the towns of Bradford and Burnley. Last July cops escorted a group of 100 racists from the predominantly Asian area of Burnley to the largely white area of the town and then pulled away to allow the fascists to launch attacks on a few Asian properties nearby. One resident said he spent 30 minutes calling the police while 60 thugs torched his home and shop.  
 
Capital needs labor
The growth of immigration over the past decade, and the incorporation of tens of millions of immigrants into the working class across Europe, is a result of the natural workings of capitalism. Labor follows capital flows, and capital constantly seeks layers of toilers to draw in and superexploit in order to boost profit rates and international competitiveness. And population trends in Europe are pressing the capitalists to open the doors of immigration simply in order to prevent negative population growth.

In a July 2000 speech the European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Antonio Vitorino, said the EU is "facing a changing economic and demographic situation which, I believe, calls into question our existing response to the phenomena of migration.... the zero immigration policies of the past 25 years are not working, but, in addition, they are no longer relevant to the economic and demographic situation in which the Union now finds itself."

Without a change in current birth rates among Europeans, the population of the continent will fall from 380 million to 340 million by 2050. France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom were the destinations for the big bulk of immigrants over the past decade. But to keep their populations at the same level, the four countries will need to increase immigration from 237,000 a year to 677,000 a year over that time period.

When the German government agreed to allow computer-related industries to hire and bring in up to 30,000 foreign workers in 2000, opposition parties responded with the slogan, "Kinder statt Inder," or "Children instead of Indians," pressing the rightist propaganda that German women should bear more babies rather than allow immigration from India.  
 
Similar conflicts in Scandinavia
On January 17 three fascist youth in Norway were sentenced to prison for knifing to death Benjamin Hermansen, a 15-year-old African-Norwegian, last year. At their trial the three defendants, who are members of a fascist gang called the Bootboys, testified that they thought Norway should be reserved for white Norwegians. "We hate foreigners," they reportedly said at their trial.

The immigrant population in Norway has more than doubled since 1980 and now accounts for 5.5 percent of the country's 4.5 million people. Rightist figures have sought to scapegoat noncitizens for rising unemployment, a housing crisis, and other social problems. The right-wing Progress Party emerged as a force in the country's elections last September while the former ruling Labor Party suffered its worst defeat in 80 years.

All the traditional bourgeois parties adopted aspects of the Progress Party's anti-welfare, anti-immigrant program. The Progress Party itself waged a campaign to limit immigration to 1,000 people a year and championed a proposal to deport immigrants who have allegedly committed a crime. While the rightist outfit is not a formal part of the new coalition government, two of its members were appointed to chair the Finance Committee, which oversees the national budget, and the Social Affairs Committee, which deals with health and welfare issues.

In Sweden ultrarightist skinheads savagely beat a Hungarian-born worker last year as he left his job as a ticket collector in a subway station. Two months later traffic cops gunned down Idris Demir, a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey. Faced with the threat of deportation, Demir had fled after failing to provide the cops with identification and was shot in the back.  
 
 
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